The £220,000 home of Ex-Guantanamo ISIS suicide bomber...and you paid for it
NEIGHBOURS of an Islamic State suicide bomber freed from Guantanamo Bay and handed £1million compensation which he used to buy a £220,000 house claim they always suspected he was a terrorist.
British ex-Guantanamo Bay inmate 'dies fighting for ISIS'
Jamal al-Harith, 50, launched a suicide attack on an army base near Mosul, killing Iraqi soldiers earlier this week.
In 2011, thanks to a £1million taxpayer compensation payout, the killer, who was called Abu Zakariya al-Britani by IS, splashed out on a three-storey period semi-detached home and lavished it with expensive furnishings.
At the time of his release by then prime minister Tony Blair, the home secretary David Blunkett insisted that al-Harith was “no threat” and had been merely captured by US troops in Afghanistan while visiting for a “religious holiday”.
Jamal al-Harith was handed £1million compensation which he used to buy a £220,000 house
But three years after moving to Heaton Chapel, near Stockport, he had fled to Syria to join Islamic State.
So much for Tony Blair’s assurances this extremist did not pose a security threat
Neighbours claimed they suspected strange “comings and goings” at his home but police never reacted until after the family had fled abroad.
One resident said: “Police then came round and went through the house top to bottom and took away loads of stuff.
"I did tell them that I had reported my worries about six months earlier but they didn’t seem to be aware of it.
The IS terrorist bought the three-storey period semi-detached home in Heaton Chapel, near Stockport
Jamal al-Harith, born Ronald Fiddler, lavished the home with expensive furnishings
“The wife wore full Muslim dress and never said anything.”
Tory MP Tim Loughton branded the six-figure payout “scandalous”, adding: “So much for Tony Blair’s assurances this extremist did not pose a security threat.
“He clearly was a risk to Britain all along. It adds insult to injury he was given £1million.”
Born Ronald Fiddler, the son of devout Christian Jamaican immigrants, al-Harith went to school in Moss Side, Manchester, before technical college.
At the age of 25 he converted to Islam and attended Khartoum University in Sudan.
In October 2001 he travelled to Pakistan supposedly for a religious holiday but in 2002 he was found with the Taliban by US troops and assessed as a “high threat to the US”.
After being released in 2004 by Tony Blair, al-Harith bemoaned his treatment in Guantanamo Bay saying: “The whole point was to get to you psychologically.
After a while, we stopped asking for human rights – we wanted animal rights.”
That year he and other Guantanamo detainees launched a legal action against the US government each demanding £5.4million.
But it was dropped when the UK government paid them £1million each. Initially al-Harith found work as a web designer and administrator in an Islamic school but in 2014 he travelled to IS-controlled Syria.
In 2002 Jamal al-Harith was found with the Taliban by US troops and assessed as a 'high threat'
The following year his law graduate wife Shukee Begum followed him there.
In 2015 she said: “I’d love to go back to the UK but I’m just not sure if the UK is somewhere I can achieve justice.”
Two days ago al-Harith was filmed grinning as he sped toward an Iraqi army base in a truck laden with explosives.
Last night his family said they wished “to express their sorrow and distress at the news of his death”.